Are you "out" at work?

[Mykelogan]

Thanks to everyone for sharing in this thread. It is definitely very interesting to read everyone's experiences in the workplace. I work in Higher Education (I am a Residence Hall Director at a college) and have been out in every job I have had. Mostly it was easy because at first much of my work and experience in college that i was putting on my resume was in LGBT related leadership roles. I also do workshops on homophobia/heterosexism on my campus and for others so that definitely puts me out there. My co-workers/supervisors are great and if any haven't been I usually end up opening their minds eventually. hehe My students are funny in that most are usually blown away when they find out I am gay because I guess I do not "seem" gay to them, whatever that means! lol

Have a great day all!
Mike

 

[airhead]

My job situation is that I'm an airbrush artist who works from home. When I'm not airbrushing,I'm training dogs either at a doggy daycare or privately. Dogs don't care. Go to a dog show sometime,you'll find MANY who play on our team!! I've been with my partner for 30 years. WAY too long to refer to her as my "roommate"!!

 

[iankh]

I don't know if I'm out or not. My boss knows that I'm gay, but I've worked for her for 4 years (3 years at a previous company and 1 at this one). She and I have talked about many things and very open about my relationship. Many colleagues know that I'm gay. I just sort of treat it as a very matter of factual thing. Although some poor souls are stumped as to why a middle aged man, who's unmarried and with out kids would own points in DVC. Yeah, and I have a roommate I've lived with for 19 years.

 

[bubie2.5]

I am, but that’s just because I’m my own boss now. At my last job the CEO was family, one day we were out on a business dinner and while waiting for the others she told me: “have kids, that’s the only thing I’ve ever regret not doing”… so I’m assuming she knew. I told one co-worker, I don’t know about the rest, it was never brought up.

 

[nordkin]

My partner and I are both out at work. We both work for Fortune 500 companies, she is on their executive GLBT task force and I am on our diversity council. The thing I am most proud of is writing the business case that got domestic partner benefits for employees in 2005. By the way my company is a major utility and this is a major step in the utility industry. Neither of us has any problems at work and both of us have been promoted into upper management after coming out.

 

[SurfnStitch]

I'm out at work. I've never really came out and said it, but in a way I think I'm kinda obvious! When I first started I constantly talked about my "roommate" (and of course I still do) so I think the people here just put 2 and 2 together. They're all really cool with it and always ask how she's doing since she's temporarily working out of state now.

My SO has been out in her jobs as well, with the exception of the one she has now. She never "came out", but just like me after talking about the roommate people just clicked on. In fact when I had surgery last year her co-workers were sending me Get Well cards!

I guess that's one of the great things about living in such a liberal area such as the Bay Area, it's very nice and relaxed!

Hey Icebrat, we're not too far away from each other. I'm in Marin!

 

[polarboi]

In my previous job, I didn't say much about my personal life because I wasn't that close to my coworkers. I wasn't in a relationship and none of us talked much about what we did outside of work, so there wasn't any need for it to come up. I wasn't "in the closet," but I didn't bring up my sexuality either... until the one day that one of my male co-workers asked if I thought a certain girl was hot, and I just smiled and said, "Dude... you're totally asking the wrong guy."

He looked at me for a moment, then his eyes got wide and he said, "Oh! Oh!.... Oh I didn't know! I'm really sorry!" It took me several minutes to convince him that it was just fine and he had nothing to apologize for. It made me laugh. After that, it seemed like everyone suddenly knew.

Now I work for a gay Christian organization. So yeah... I'm out.

-p.b.

 

[OKW Lover]

My partner and I are both out at work. We both work for Fortune 500 companies, she is on their executive GLBT task force and I am on our diversity council. The thing I am most proud of is writing the business case that got domestic partner benefits for employees in 2005. By the way my company is a major utility and this is a major step in the utility industry. Neither of us has any problems at work and both of us have been promoted into upper management after coming out.

I work for a major utility in New England and we've also got parter benefits. Had them even before MA legalized same-sex marriages.

 

[momto3gr8boys]

My bosses and co-workers do, others don't. I have 2 jobs, I teach pre-school, and I work at a hotel. I doubt the parents would want to know that they have a lesbian teacher, they'd probably freak out.

i teach pre-school also, at an independent N-8 private school. i'm not out to the parents, but i am to most of the faculty and administration, and no one seems to care.

 

[DisneyRainbow]

I am out at work and actually have come out during interviews. I refuse to work for homophobes. Happy to say I work for Wells Fargo and they are extremely gay-friendly. During my interview I talked about reaching out to the GLBT community and I believe that gave me a leg up. I'm in Florida now (from Massachusetts originally) and so far I've had no problems with homophobes. Also, Wells Fargo has partnership (same and opposite sex) benefits so I signed my partner up and saved quite a bit of money. See you at Gay Days!

 

[Ilovestitch]

I'm straight but up until a month ago I was a manager of an Abercrombie & Fitch and we had more gay guys than straight working there! I thought it was awesome! I am not very good w/putting together outfits for myself so I would rely on my gay coworker to "dress me"- they loved it. I would say Abercrombie & Fitch is a very gay friendly work environment.

-Stephanie

 

[David R]

I don't go around announcing that I'm gay but after 7+ years here they all know I am. Everyone loves my partner and he is always a part of any social functions we may have outside of office hours. I consider myself lucky.

Having said that, I begin a new job in 3 weeks but I get the feeling that it is also a fairly welcoming place of work. My gaydar went off immediately during the interview with one of my future coworkers and a quick google search afterwards confirmed it. He seemed very well liked so I'm sure that it won't be an issue at all when I start.

And sooner or later they'll see the rainbow mickey sticker on my car (okay, so that's about as much annoucing as I do.)

 

[yensiD naF]

I was a store manager for a major retail chain in the San Francisco Bay Area. I finally felt comfortable enough in a job to come out to my employees and eventually my boss. I was one of only a few gay managers with this chain, at least one who was "out". I knew many "out" assistant managers who had been with the company for a long time, but never got promoted and wondered why, but they never talked about it.

My employees were very supportive and a couple were proud that I had the courage to come out. I never bragged or anything. I just realized that it was easier to be honest and not to hide such an important part of my life. When I used the word "partner" with my boss, things changed dramatically. She had treated me with a fair amount of respect and dignity until she found out that I was gay. Her attitude changed in such a way that it was painfully obvious that she was homophobic. Something I had never expected before.

My boss was a district manager with the company. She began harrassing me, creating situations to write me up, threatening to fire me and worse. This happened in an instant after she found out who I was. The funny thing was only a month before this happened, she had given me a glowing annual review and said how proud she was to have me on her team. Needless to say I felt exremely cofortable with her.

When her behavior changed, I began asking some of my fellow managers about it. Some of them told me how she felt about gay people and that she had prevented some employees from being promoted because of it. My district manager got her way and fired me a few months later for another trumped up charge. I took my case to Human Resources and of course they, and she denied everything. California is an "at will" employment state, which means that I could be fired for anything, without reason. Although when I had real problems with an employee who was stealing from the company, my boss wouldn't let me do anything about it.

I share this story because it changed my life. Being fired from this company was the best thing that ever happened to me. I decided that I would never hide my sexuality again, at the workplace or anywhere. Sure it proved that there are evil, sick people out there. But it also paved the way for me to work for much better companies.

You might think that the Walt Disney Company would be a great employer. But in my case, being a store manager for The Disney Store who happened to be gay marked the end of a career, but the beginning of many great new chapters in my life.

 

[LJC1861]

Yensid naf-

We had almost the same experience working for Disney! I was a lead at the 5th Ave. store and later on at the ABC Studio store. At the 5th Ave store my sexuality and the frequent mention of my partner was a total non-issue. Most of my DS castmates had met Lisa and she was part of any gathering that we had. When I moved to the ABC store, again it was a non-issue with my Store Manager. Then she left and was replaced by someone I had known and worked with at 5th. Ave. Now Jeanette knew about Lisa and knew that I was gay. My performance had not changed one bit, but suddenly I went from being a great lead to one being written up if I breathed the wrong way. After about 6 months of this torture I made the difficult decision to leave TDS and go to work for the NBA store. It turned out to be a good decision on my part because shortly after that all the NYC stores were closed to make way for the 5th Ave. store to turn into WOD.

Linda

 

[MassJester]

There are some parts of the country in whcih employment dsicrimination based on sexual orientation (or perceived sexual orientation for that matter) is legal. New York City and San Francisco do not happen to fall on that list.

Both have government agencies through which on non-represented party (you without a lawyer) can pursue a complaint.

As tough as the complaining process is, when at all practical is should be pursued.

I've been "out" at work since joining the company, and was partially responsible for having the company add sexual orientation to the non-discrimination statement (lot's of right-leaning folk of narrow experience on the executive committee, so it took some educating).

 

[tmorse65]

I live in Salt Lake City with my partner of 25 years and I'm out at work. In fact, my employer offers benefits to same sex couples and the people are great.
Actually, I don't know how one could hide it after a few years or so anyway. People sort of just catch on anyhow.

 

[T&KHayes]

At my work (very SMALL) it is just The owners (husband & wife) myself & a part time high school girl. I am totally out and my bosses are wonderful! We also have quite a few regular customers who are gay, including our accountants. My bosses are definately CSP. They just took us to a crab feed on friday night and we had a blast! Remember we are small town USA Pop. 60,000ish including the small outer lining towns.

 

[Boston5602]

I've been at my job for years , when I started the company was owned by Rupert Murdoch . He's real Gay Friendly Anyways I'd been there less than a year when I told my union rep that there was a gay pride type sticker on my locker . He looked at me shocked ( not for reasons I thought ) He went on and on about how he would " GET TO THE BOTTOM OF THIS " and find out WHO would do such a thing to me being the nice guy I was . I couldn't help but laugh when I told him it was me. OH , He said ok if you have any roblems let me know . That was it . Now all of the employees in the department report to me and we're not owned by News Corp any more either.

 

[TwitterMouse]

I'm out at work and at school (I'm a high school senior). My moms didn't come out at work, but people sort of found out and it got around.
I don't have any problems being out at work one of my co-workers is out as well). At school I've run into problems during previous years (last year I couldn't go to gym class, I kept getting harrassed and called a **** in the locker room), but this year seems to be going okay. Everyone at school seems to know I'm a lesbian or assume it, I guess short hair is a dead give away

 

[majortom]

hehe My students are funny in that most are usually blown away when they find out I am gay because I guess I do not "seem" gay to them, whatever that means! lol

Have a great day all!
Mike

Your post reminds me of a funny story.

While I have always been out at work even within the Navy (I was Direct Commissioned, in a very technical area), I have had two boyfriends that were not out and so I did not introduce them to others at work as such. Because of that, not everyone knew (if we never had a conversation where relationships or similar were a topic it did not get discussed). I had worked at Argonne National Lab and one of my close friends from there was getting married.

He invited me and my (now-ex) boyfriend Pete to the wedding. One of my former ANL coworkers was there, and I introduced him to Pete saying that he was my boyfriend. John (former coworker) responded: No, really who is he? It took me quite a bit of time to convince John that I was really gay and not just playing with him. It was not that it bothered him, just that he never realized that I was gay and it really surprised him.

One other funny story that involves Nick (the friend who was getting married). I first started going to Disney on my own in the late 80's. When I was at Argonne, I would often organize trips that would include many of my Argonne friends. On returning from one of these trips, Nick's dad met us at the airport and drove us home. His dad was a retired blue collar worker, from a very traditional Greek (and Greek Orthodox) family.

I do not remember how it arose, but we started discussing a situation that had happened at Disneyland in the early 80's where a gay couple had be kicked out of the park for holding hands (nothing more).

Nick's dad started to speak and Nick looked back at me clearly nervous about what his dad was going to say. His dad started with "That is really wrong! I can't believe they did that!"

Nick was about to jump in to defend the couple, when his dad finished: "What harm were they doing? Why should anyone care if they were gay? Did they stop straight couples from holding hands?"

Nick broke out into a huge smile. It is always one of my stories that shows that you never know how people are going to react.

/carmi